


Knit Two Together

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fluff, Happy Ending, Knitting, M/M, Me Indulging The Softest Of My Martin Headcanons, Now with more cats, Spoilers through Season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-01-02 01:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21153335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Five times Martin knit something for Jon and one time Jon knit something for Martin.1. Scarf- During a quiet moment at the archive, Jon receives an unexpected gift.2. Fingerless Gloves- It's holiday time down in the archives, and what's a holiday without presents?3. Socks- Jon fled the Institute without his scarf or his fingerless gloves, but thankfully he still has the socks on his feet.4. Blanket- Jon walks out of the hospital after a six month coma with a clean bill of health, new clothes, and a blue knitted blanket.5. Sweater- The world as they know it may have ended, but that hasn't stopped Martin from knitting.6. Scarf (Reprise)- It's Christmas Eve morning and Martin has given Jon an early Christmas present. It's only fair that Martin gets to open one as well.





	1. Scarf

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter takes place during a nebulous point during the beginning of Season 2 and features a slightly more gentle, less paranoid Jon.

“Statement ends,” Jon says, turning off the tape recorder with a click before leaning back in his chair with a sigh. He’s tired, but lately he feels like he’s _always _been tired, always been seeing things out of the corner of his eyes, little wriggling silver shapes coming for him but that’s, well—

Jon runs his hands over his face, feeling the scars along his cheek and neck, shivering a little with revulsion and memory. Jane Prentiss is dead, he knows that, but memories and fear last far beyond bodies—

There’s a knock at Jon’s door, a quiet little series of taps that tell Jon who it is before he hears Martin’ voice.

“Jon? Can I come in?”

“I was just leaving,” Jon says quickly, getting up and reaching for his coat. Ever since the attack on the Institute, Martin has been— hovering— for lack of a better term, and Jon has a feeling Martin has come around to tell him that it’s late and he should go home. Never mind that Martin is _also _here late and by his own logic should be going home as well.

“That’s good! I mean— I’m glad I caught you before you left. It’ll just take a second.”

There was no avoiding it, even if Jon had wanted to. There was only one door into and out of his office after all. He opened the door and looked up at Martin, who was giving Jon a rather sheepish little smile. It was a sight Jon was very familiar with. For such a large man, Martin’s facial expressions tended towards the small and subtle. Slight smiles, nearly imperceptible frowns.

“Hi. Umm—“ There it was, the concerned narrowing of brows. “Are you all right, Jon? You look— tired.”

“That’s because I _am_ tired, Martin. I could say the same for you.” There were dark shadows under the man’s eyes, and Jon finds himself thinking that they don’t suit Martin at all. “Haven’t been sleeping well?”

“Not really,” Martin admits. “Nightmares, you know. But it’s fine!” He says this quickly, smiling, and the smile is just wide enough that Jon knows it to be false.

When had he gotten so good at learning Martin’s tells? Well, he had been working with Martin for awhile, and when you see someone every day, you got to know their face pretty well too. That was all it was, surely.

“There was something you wanted?” Jon asks, shrugging on his coat. He doesn’t mean to be unkind, he really doesn’t, but he can hear the irritation plain in his voice, and can see it reflected in the hurt in Martin’s eyes. He sighs. “Sorry. Just— tired. It’s been a long week.”

“It’s all right, I understand,” Martin says, and it sounds sincere. “I just— well, I finished this last night and—“ He reaches into the pocket of his coat and pulls out a bundle wrapped in tissue paper, thrusting it in Jon’s direction. “I wanted you to have it.”

Jon takes the package with not a little bit of confusion. It feels soft underneath the wrapping. “Why? What is it?”

“Well, you could open it and find out,” Martin says with a nervous little laugh. There’s a flush starting to crawl across his face, highlighting the scattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. “And, I mean, hasn’t anyone ever given you a present for no reason?”

“Can’t say that’s been something that’s happened to me before now, no.” Jon admits as he carefully tears at the wrapping. A moment later he’s running his fingers over a soft wool scarf the color of a winter sky just before sunset turns to night. He didn’t know yarn could be so soft, could carry such complex colors. His experience with such things had been the afghans his grandmother had used to crochet, plasticky feeling and itchy, the yarn starting out too bright and fading with time and the sun.

“I took up knitting while I was living here in the archive,” Jon hears Martin saying. “I couldn’t sleep then either, and being awake with nothing to do felt like— like being trapped back at my apartment with only my books. So I figured if I was going to be awake anyway, I might as well learn to do something useful. It’s kind of soothing really.” He chuckles. “You should have seen my first scarf, it was terrible. Just as well the worms ate it, really.”

Jon keeps stroking the scarf. There’s a tightness in his chest and he feels his eyes begin to burn. He must be tired, if he’s having emotions over a _scarf_.

“Jon?” Martin sounds worried. “Do you like it? You’re petting it like a cat, so that probably means you like it but—“

“Sorry, I—“ Jon swallows and tries again, looking up at Martin this time, at the faint worry line creasing his forehead. “It’s beautiful, Martin. Thank you.”

The blush on Martin’s face deepens and creeps down towards his neck. “You’re not just saying that? It’s not fancy or anything, I can’t do much more than the basics right now.”

“I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true,” Jon reassures him, wrapping the scarf around his neck before tucking it into his coat. The wool is soft against his neck, and the touch of it against his scars doesn’t cause that familiar feeling of repulsion. “How does it look?”

Martin blinks at Jon. “You look good,” he says. “I mean— the scarf. Looks good on you.”

“Thank you again,” Jon says. “And you must be just as tired as I am if you’re tripping over your words,” Later, much much later, he’ll wonder how he had missed something so blindingly obvious as Martin’s feelings for him back then. “Let’s go, shall we?”

The night air is cold as the two of them step out of the Institute, but Jon feels warm all the way home.


	2. Fingerless Gloves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holiday time down in the archives, and what's a holiday without presents?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place partway through Season 2, sometime after the events in episode 56 at any rate. Again featuring a slightly softer Jon.

Officially, the Magnus Institute as a whole has a holiday party just before everyone gets time off for the holidays. It’s the usual thing with music and food and alcohol and exchanging of small gifts, or at least, that’s what Jon’s understanding is from what he’s heard from Martin and Tim. Jon himself has never gone, not even back when he was just a researcher, before he had been promoted to head archivist. It’s not that he doesn’t _like_ parties, it’s just, well, he barely _knows _anyone except for his research staff, and Elias of course. Being surrounded by noise and people he doesn’t know is something Jon can tolerate with a bit of mental preparation if he _has_ to, but thankfully participation in the actual holiday party is not mandatory.

_Unofficially, _the archives have their own celebration of a sort, usually just cookies in the break room and names drawn out of a hat between the four of them for the gift exchange. It had been Sasha who’d implemented that the first year they had all been working together, and it was both harmless enough and more of Jon’s speed these days. It almost hadn’t happened this year though.

“Does Sasha seem—I don’t know, off to you?” Martin had asked Jon earlier in the month after they’d all drawn names. “I mean, it’s a week into December and I had to ask her about the name drawing. She was so keen on it last year.”

“People get distracted around the holidays,” Jon had said dismissively as he had peered down at his slip of paper. Tim. Well, that’d easy. Tim was a coffee drinker, a gift card to his favorite coffeeshop would take care of that. Some people would say that gift cards were impersonal, but Jon had known Tim wouldn’t mind, though he would probably prefer a bottle of scotch instead.

When Jon had looked up, Martin had been staring at his slip of paper with an expression Jon hadn’t been able to read. “Got someone you don’t like?” Jon had asked. He had meant it to be a joke. After all, there had been only two names it could have been, Jon’s or Sasha’s, and Jon had been pretty sure Martin liked the two of them just fine. Martin got along with anybody, even tolerating Jon when he was at his most prickly.

Martin’s head had snapped up, a nervous smile playing across his face. “Oh—oh no, of course not! Just— didn’t think I’d get this lucky.”

Jon had watched Martin walk away, mildly confused, and then had thought no more about it. There had still been statements to read and research and organize after all, and he had still had no idea who might have killed his predecessor. At least the security camera footage had proved that no of his co-workers had done it, but the mystery had still been there, nagging at him.

The mystery is still nagging at him, with very little in the way of clues, by the time the unofficial archive holiday party rolls around. If Jon hadn’t been carrying around Tim’s gift card in his coat for a week he probably would have forgotten it at home. He makes sure to transfer to his pants pocket to give to Tim later before hanging up his coat and scarf. He really must thank Martin again for the scarf, he’s become even more appreciative of it as the weather has turned even colder.

Jon spends the morning digitizing files and recording statements on his laptop. It’s funny, but it’s almost as if he’s starting to get a feel for which ones will refuse to be copied by anything other than his tape recorder. He doesn’t know how he knows, and he always tries first just in case he’s wrong, but so far he _hasn’t_ been wrong. He puts those statements in a pile to read later. It’s not a big pile, and sometimes he thinks about just setting aside a day or two to get all caught up on them but after reading the first such statement somehow he never makes it to a second or third.

It’s nearly one in the afternoon by the time Jon manages to pull himself away from his work and head up to the break room. It’s close enough to when everyone else takes their lunch that they should all be there to exchange presents and make small talk over cookies and tea before going back to work. Except no one’s in the break room when Jon enters, and there’s a distinct lack of cookies as well. There is quite a bit of red and green garland strewn about, so that’s something at least.

“Oh! Jon, you’re here! Let me just put these down, and then I’ll get the kettle going.”

Jon turns around and Martin’s standing behind him, holding one of those pre-made holiday trays of cookies of the sort Jon tends to see at the grocery store this time of year.

“I can do that,” Jon says quickly, not wanting to just stand around when he could be doing something. “Did Sasha decide not to bake this year or were we all supposed to bring something?”

“She told me this morning while I was decorating that she hadn’t had time to bake this week,” Martin says, and Jon can actually hear the slight frown in his voice over the sound of biscuits being put onto a plate. “If I had known earlier I could have probably done up a batch of the butterscotch gingerbread she gave me the recipe for last year, instead of just running to the store last minute. Anyway, she said she wasn’t feeling well, handed me an unwrapped box of tea, and told me Merry Christmas. So I guess she drew my name.”

Jon frowned himself as he waited for the kettle to boil. “You asked me before if I thought Sasha was acting a little off? Now I’m starting to wonder if it’s more than just the holiday.”

“Maybe whatever it is will sort itself out over the break,” Martin says, sounding hopeful. There’s the sound of a plate being set on the table and a soft rustling noise and then Martin is by Jon’s side. “If not, maybe we should talk to her when she gets back.”

“You’re better at that than I am,” Jon says. “Just like you’re better at making tea. Could you?”

“Of course!” Martin says cheerfully, and Jon moves out of his way. “And you talk to people all day when there’s statements to take.”

“People talk at _me_ all day,” Jon clarifies. “When they ask me my opinion on what happened to them, well, that’s when things tend to go poorly.” He’s been getting a little better about that lately, trying to at least sound a more understanding and sympathetic. It doesn’t help that anytime someone comes in with a statement, Jon feels that terrible _watching_ sensation even worse than when he simply reads statements out loud.

“I’ll talk to her then, if she still doesn’t seem right after we get back,” Martin says as he pours the streaming water into mugs. “Maybe Tim could too. Have you seen him today?”

“Not yet. I’m sure he’ll be along though. Guess it’s just you and me for the moment.”

“Guess so,” Martin says, and there’s something about the way he says it that makes Jon glance over at him. Martin looks positively flustered, and Jon suddenly thinks he knows why. He looks around quickly to make sure no one is walking by before he lowers his voice.

“Martin, I’m sorry about the other week, about— accusing you of lying to me. I was under a lot of stress, but that is no excuse.”

“It’s fine,” Martin says too quickly.

“Martin.” Jon goes to step back into Martin’s space and then thinks better of it. He doesn’t want to crowd the man, make him feel trapped. “Is it really?”

Martin sighs heavily. “It’s fine _now_,” he says. “At the time it wasn’t. At the time it was awful. I thought you were going to fire me or—or just keep shouting at me. But you didn’t do either of those things. So it’s okay.” He looks up at Jon and hands him a cup of tea. “And it’s Christmas. Time for bygones to be bygones, right?”

“I think that’s New Year’s,” Jon says, working to keep his tone light, trying not to think of the holidays of his childhood. His grandmother had tried her best to be cheerful for his sake when he had been young, but, well, it had either gotten harder as he had grown or she had stopped trying after a certain point. “Still, I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” Martin says firmly as he grabs his own cup. “Now enough of that. Sit down and open your present.”

The present in question is wrapped in shiny green paper, and Jon can’t guess from the shape of the thing what’s inside, only that it gives slightly when he picks it up, much like his scarf had, though it’s much smaller than that. “So you _did_ get my name. I was wondering.“

Martin lets out a nervous laugh. “I wasn’t sure what to get you at first, but then you— well, open it.”

Jon does, and for a moment he’s not sure what he’s looking at, just that there are two of them, whatever they are, something knitted in the same soft, gray wool as his scarf.

“You said that you don’t like how gloves make your fingers feel,” Martin says as Jon picks up his present to inspect it more closely. “All hot and like they’re trapped in tiny cages.”

Jon blinks. “I said that— was it last year?”

“It was,” Martin says and takes a sip of his tea. “But I remembered it last month when you came in with your fingers near frozen and you threatened to stick your hands in your coffee to warm them up. And I’d been wanting to try knitting in the round because I’ve been wanting to make socks. What’s your shoe size, Jon?”

“Seven,” Jon says distractedly. Now he understands. Fingerless gloves. Martin had made him fingerless gloves. He puts them on, slipping his thumbs through the thumbholes with ease. “Martin, thank you, these fit _perfectly._”

“They do?” Martin laughs in what Jon can only assume is relief. “I wasn’t sure if they would. It wasn’t like I could use my own hands for comparison.” Martin holds up one hand, which is as broad as the rest of him.

Jon can’t help but hold up one his own hand and place it against Martin’s, palm to palm. It looks so small there against Martin’s larger hand, like Martin could crush it if he just closed his fingers. Except he never would, would he?

“Jon?” Martin’s voice is quiet, but it’s enough that Jon blinks and pulls his hand back.

“Sorry,” Jon says quickly. He’s so used to _not_ touching people. “I should have asked first, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Oh no, it’s quite all right,” Martin says quickly, but the blush creeping up his neck tells Jon otherwise. Damn.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Tim’s leaning against the doorway, a small wrapped box in one hand and a smile on his face.

“No,” Jon says as Martin gets up to make Tim a cup of tea.

Martin mumbles something that Jon doesn’t catch as Tim sits down, still smiling.

“Didn’t quite catch that, Martin. Come again?” Tim asks with laughter in his voice.

“Don’t worry about it,” Martin says sourly.

Jon feels the back of his neck grow hot. He’s missing something, and he doesn’t want to ask what it is, even though he very much wants to know. He has a feeling that if he asks, the weird tension that’s suddenly sprung up in the room will only get worse. He wants to leave. Should he leave? But he hasn’t even drunk his tea yet. Wait—

“Merry Christmas, Tim,” Jon says, pulling the gift card with its cheery Christmas envelope out of his pocket and handing it over. “Hope this comes in handy.”

“Oh thank you Jon, it’ll get some hard use,” Tim says once he sees what’s inside. “This time of year, coffee is about all that keeps me going.” He says that with a smile, but for the first time Jon notices that there are the beginnings of circles under his eyes and his smile is a bit worn around the edges.

“Are you all right?” Jon and Martin both say that at once, and Tim chuckles and gives a little shrug.

“Just that time of year,” Tim says as he accepts a mug of tea from Martin. “And—I don’t know. I just have this weird feeling lately. Like something’s different, something I _should_ notice, but I can’t figure out what it is. Sasha says everything feels normal to her, so maybe it’s just me.” He taps the present he came in with against the top of the table. “Where is Sasha, anyway? I drew her name.”

“Went home sick,” Martin says as he sits back down. “Does she seem a little bit off to you?”

Tim gives a huff of a laugh. “With all the weird shit that’s been going on this past— shit, this past _year?_I think we’re all a little off.” He takes a biscuit from the plate on the table and dunks it in his tea. “Please, can we talk about something that isn’t weird and isn’t related to work or the holiday?”

Jon takes a sip of tea, savoring the orange cinnamon taste of it. “We could talk about 19th century American murder ballads.”

Everyone stares at Jon, who carefully takes another sip of tea.

“No? 17th century English murder ballads then?”

There’s a pause before Jon finally can’t help himself and cracks a smile. When Tim and Martin start laughing, it feels like Jon is being laughed _with_ and not at. If he believed in miracles, Christmas or otherwise, he’d have counted that among them.

They do not talk about murder ballads, (Jon actually could, that part of the joke was true) but they do talk about things that interest them, music and knitting and architecture, and it’s a rare moment of camaraderie that’ll make Jon’s chest ache to think about later. The memory will carry with it the taste of orange and cinnamon, the feel of soft wool against his palms, the sound of laughter and the image of Martin’s hand against his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about listing Not!Sasha in the character tags but we never do see her here, do we, even if her presence and lack of it is very much felt.
> 
> Still can't believe I'm posting a Christmas fic on Devil's Night. This is how I'm coping with finale anxiety. (I don't get to listen to the episode until Thursday, no spoilers please, not even vague ones.)


	3. Socks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon fled the Archives without his scarf and his fingerless gloves, but thankfully he still has the socks on his feet.

Jon sits on the edge of Georgie’s guest bed, his head in his hands, breathing deeply. His eyes are closed, but even open he knows he’d just be able to see the same thing. Blood. So much blood. Blood and bits of bone and Jurgen’s _face_, his _expression_—

“I was only gone for a minute,” Jon whispers, not for the first time that night.

There’s a knock on the closed door. “Jon? I found you some clothes you can borrow.”

“Thank you Georgie,” Jon says quietly, not sure if Georgie can even hear him through the door. He should make himself get up and let her in. First he has to open his eyes.

“Do you— I can just leave them here, if you like?”

He really _should_ get up. There’s no reason not to get up, except for the fact that he’s beyond exhausted and the thought of moving five steps towards the door feels like an impossible task.

“Jon?”

Jon hears the click of the doorknob turning and that’s what finally gets him to open his eyes and turn his head.

“Admiral, no, don’t—!”

There’s a _mmrrrrp_ sound as an orange, extraordinarily fluffy cat runs into the room and leaps onto the bed.

Jon remembers Georgie asking him on the phone if he was allergic to cats. “Hello,” Jon says quietly, slowly holding out a hand for the cat to inspect. “I didn’t see you when I first came in.”

“He tends to hide from strangers,” Georgie says, making her way into the room, arms full of shirts and sweatpants. “Here,” she says as she sets the clothes on top of the dresser. “You should recognize some of these, you used to borrow them often enough.”

“Your clothes were always softer than mine,” Jon says as the Admiral nudges Jon’s hand and begins to purr. “Oh, okay, I’ve been deemed worthy of petting you. Thank you, I’m very honored.”

“You should be,” Georgie says, sitting on the bed next to the two of them. “He doesn’t usually warm up to new people this fast.” She tilts her head. “I think it took three months for the Admiral to let my last girlfriend pet him in fact, and then we broke up, so—“ She shrugs. “Ah well. Must just be something about you.”

What exactly that something might be, Jon doesn’t know, but if it means getting to pet a soft, fluffy cat then he’s glad of it. He feels himself smiling just a little bit mentally, and wonders if the expression is actually being reflected on his face. “When did you get him?”

“Oh, has to be almost two years ago now,” Georgie says, reaching out to give the Admiral a scratch behind the ears. “It’s— kind of a weird story, actually.”

Jon’s hand stills in the Admiral’s fur as an emotion so intense flashes through him that he has to stop everything so he can process it. He wants to ask Georgie to tell him the story, but it’s not just simple curiosity that drives him. Its— like realizing he hasn’t eaten all day and then someone putting his favorite food in front of him. _Hunger. _That’s what it feels like, but not a physical hunger. He _wants_.

The Admiral meows, a clear sound of displeasure that the petting seems to have stopped. Jon mentally shakes himself. He’s exhausted and he’s been through a lot today. No wonder his thoughts are tending towards the strange. “I’d like to hear it sometime,” Jon says carefully as he begins petting the Admiral again, who purrs even more loudly at him, forgiving him his momentary lapse.

“It’s _really_ weird,” Georgie says. “Maybe almost as weird as you calling me out of the blue because you’ve had some sort of job dispute that’s somehow left you without clothes or a place to live.” Her tone isn’t judgmental, more full of curious concern. “Can’t say I was expecting that today.”

Jon sighs. “I guess I do owe you an explanation at least.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Jon,” Georgie says sincerely. “You just sounded— a little shaky on the phone, that’s all.”

A little shaky. Jon barely remembers the phone call, just remembers staring at his terribly few phone contacts, nearly all of them work numbers, before hitting Georgie’s name. He forces a chuckle. “Well, you know me. I don’t handle sudden changes very well.”

Georgie gives a little huff of a laugh. “No, no you don’t. Still, things change regardless it seems. You never used to be one for striped socks for instance.”

Jon blinks and looks down at his feet, toes curling slightly in embarrassment. Somehow he had forgotten he had taken off his shoes. The socks are indeed striped, black and gray and white and purple, all colors Jon tends to wear frequently. “Oh. A co-worker— Martin, he gave me these for my birthday. He knits, and, well, he said he’d been wanting to try and make socks. The stripes were tricky, he said next time he’d try self-striping yarn, which I didn’t even know existed, but I don’t know that much about knitting really, just that there’s yarn involved, and needles.” Martin had shown him the needles, short, thin things that had been pointed at both ends, and Jon’s first thought had been that they wouldn’t have made terrible weapons if the worms had attacked again.

“Wow, he must _really_ like you,” Georgie says, and there’s something about the way she says it that makes Jon blink and look up at her. One of her eyebrows is raised, and her smile has a slight, amused twist to it.

“Sorry?”

“I mean, I’ve dated knitters,” Georgie says. “Hell, I can even knit a scarf that mostly stays the same size from start to finish and doesn’t have too many unexpected holes. Socks are a _commitment_. Well, all hand knits are, to be fair. But it’s not like a plain scarf that you can bang out in the evenings while listening to a podcast or something. Socks are more complex that that, especially if you’re doing anything fancy with the yarn, like stripes. And then when you finish one, well, you’re still not _finished_ then, because you have to do the same thing all over again so you can have a pair.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Jon says quietly, and then he’s back to staring at his feet again, thinking about the thousands of tiny stitches that make up his socks. How long would it have taken Martin to make these? Days? No, longer than that. Weeks? How long had his scarf taken, or his fingerless gloves, both left behind with his coat in his haste to leave the Institute. He had known logically that knitting must take time, but somehow it hadn’t come together in his head that the gifts Martin had been giving him were a tangible expression of Martin _choosing_ to use his time to make something for _him_, hours and days and weeks wrapped up in wool.

Jon is dimly aware that Georgie is still speaking, something about a sweater curse, though surely he’s misheard her. Instead something she had said a moment ago is echoing in his head.

_Wow, he must _ ** _really_ ** _ like you._

Jon remembers Martin blushing and tripping over his words when he had given Jon the scarf. He flexes his fingers and remembers comparing the size of his hand to Martin’s own, how Martin had blushed in what Jon had thought at the time was discomfort. Lastly, he remembers just a few short weeks ago, when he had worn his new socks for the first time, and the look on Martin’s face when Jon had told him that they had fit perfectly, that wide smile that had seemed, well, a little excessive at the time for something he had thought as simple as a pair of well fitting socks. _Oh._

“Jon?” Georgie’s voice finally cuts its way though his thoughts. “Are you all right? You got rather quiet all of a sudden.”

Jon makes himself look up from his feet. “Sorry,” he says with what he hopes is an apologetic smile. “Just tired.”

Georgie looks chagrined. “Of course you are, and here I am just rattling on.” She reaches out and gives his shoulder a squeeze before standing, scooping the Admiral up in her arms. “Extra blankets are in the closet at the end of the hall if you need them. Sleep well, Jon.”

“You too,” Jon says, and then Georgie is gone and he’s alone again. He undresses for bed and clicks off the light, slipping under the covers with a sigh, his mind still active even as his body longs for rest. Martin _likes_ him? Maybe not anymore. The whole Institute probably thinks he’s a murderer now. And even if Martin didn’t believe that, well—

“How do I feel about Martin?” Jon whispers into the dark, half wishing that Georgie hadn’t taken the Admiral with her so at least he could have something to talk to that wasn’t himself. “It doesn’t matter. Or— or it does, but I can’t _think_ about that now. Too much is going on.” He closes his eyes, trying desperately to dispel the image of Jurgen Leitner’s corpse from his mind. “They’ll— they’ll be time to think about that later.”

Jon doesn’t realize until he wakes up in the morning that he never took off his socks before going to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, chapter 4 is going to sting a little.


	4. Blanket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon walks out of the hospital with a clean bill of health, new clothes, and a blue knitted blanket.

After six months in a coma, Jon walks out of the hospital with a clean bill of health, new clothes that Basira has bought him, and a blue knitted blanket that apparently had shown up on Jon’s hospital bed about four months ago.

The doctors had very much wanted Jon to stay for another few days for more tests, more blood work and brain scans because, well, Jon was _fine._ No muscle atrophy, no cognitive impairment, _nothing._ That wasn’t normal. The words ‘miraculous recovery’ had been mentioned once or twice until Jon had— well, he had said some things. Shouted them really. The fact that he was alive did not feel like a miracle. It felt like a choice someone had given him, and Jon wasn’t sure if he had chosen correctly.

Everything feels different in a way he can’t explain. Like while he had been unconscious someone had gone inside him and rearranged everything ever so slightly, so that things were just out of true. Maybe that was because for six months he’d been in his own head, and now he was experiencing the world again. The hospital had been a low grade sensory nightmare, with the sound of machines and the smell of disinfectant, and he had been hoping that the feeling of being overwhelmed would fade once he was out of that place.

“Has the sun always been that bright?” Jon asks, squinting as he steps out of the hospital’s double doors. He can feel Basira’s hand on his arm, a concession that had been made so that he could forego the standard procedure of being wheeled out in a wheelchair. He can walk just fine, though he notices that the slight limp he’d had before the Unknowing, his little souvenir from Jane Prentiss’ attack on the Archive, hasn’t mysteriously gone away. Neither has the half tingly/ half numb feeling in his scarred right hand from Jude Perry’s burning handshake.

“Far as I know?” Basira says as she leads him to the car. “I think there’s— there’s a pair of Daisy’s sunglasses in the glove box, if it’s bothering you that badly.”

“It’s fine,” Jon says automatically. “Just not used to it, I guess.” He tugs slightly at the cuffs of his new shirt. They’re stiff against his skin and he wonders just how many times he’ll have to wash it to get the fabric as soft and worn as he likes. “Thank you for the clothes. Did— did anything of mine survive when the Flesh attacked? I— I had a scarf and a pair of fingerless gloves I was rather fond of.” His socks are gone, that he knows. He’d been wearing them the day of the Unknowing. For luck, he had told himself at the time. For luck and not just because he had wanted a little piece of Martin with him.

“I don’t remember seeing a scarf,” Basira says as she opens the car door for him. “Or gloves. But everything was just blood and well, _bits_ in there. They got the stains out of the floor mostly, and the walls all needed to be repainted, but everything else got tossed, except for the stuff in your desk. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Jon says again as he buckles his seat belt and places the folded blanket onto his lap, running his fingers over the stitches. Basira had said she hadn’t known where it had come from, but Jon knows it had to have come from Martin. Martin, who hadn’t come to visit him since before he had woken up. Martin who wasn’t here now. “Does— did…?” _Did Martin know I was leaving the hospital today?_ Jon wants to ask, but the words catch in his throat.

“I left Martin a note,” Basira says, as if she had heard the unasked question. Jon wonders vaguely if maybe she had. “Several, in fact. I don’t see very much of him these days.”

_Not since he started working so closely with Peter Lukas_, Jon thinks to himself, feeling anxiety, his old constant companion, crawl along his spine. He’s worried about Martin, and if Jon could just see him maybe that prickly feeling of dread would ease up a bit, but he hasn’t seen him, has he? Jon hadn’t realized that he had been expecting Martin to be there when he had first opened his eyes, had been _hoping_ for it even, but he had. He really had.

“So, am I taking you home? Or back to the Institute?”

For a moment, Jon doesn’t understand the question. They’re the same place, aren’t they? Yes, he has a flat, and _someone _has been paying the rent on it, just like Jon’s been still getting paid on the regular despite having been in a coma. But these days, well, the flat might as well be a large closet with a bed and a kitchen for all the time he’s spent at it. It’s a place where he stores some things, but it’s not where he _lives._

_“_The Institute please,” Jon says quietly. “I have work to do.”

“Right,” Basira says, the word heavy as a stone, inviting no further conversation. She resents him, and Jon doesn’t have to use any of his more supernatural senses to determine why. He’s alive, and Daisy isn’t. Simple as that. If Jon thought it would help he’d gladly tell Basira that he didn’t think it was a fair trade either, Daisy and Tim’s life for his, but he knows it wouldn’t be a comfort.

Jon lowers his head and closes his eyes, fingers still moving along the blanket’s stitches as if they were a cipher he could read with his fingers. Martin has to have been the one who gave this to him, who picked out the color, a serene blue, who spent who knows how long knitting it. And yet, there’s something slightly off about it. The gifts Martin had made for Jon before had been, as far as Jon could tell, perfect. Oh sure, Martin had pointed out little things to him, like the way the stripes on his socks had a little “jog” in between color transitions, but it hadn’t been anything Jon would have noticed or questioned on his own. The blanket though, there were bits where some of the stitches were twisted, standing out amongst the rest of their fellows. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to it, and Jon actually finds the change in texture intriguing, but still he wonders what—

Jon’s awareness of his surroundings changes without warning. One moment he’s sitting in a car, looking at the darkness behind his closed eyes and the next he’s looking down at himself in a hospital bed, a bodiless consciousness, an observer. It feels like his dreams, but it also feels like a memory. Not _his _memory, but a memory nonetheless.

The Jon in the bed looks terrible, skin dull and ashy. There are several monitors, one alive with activity, the others registering none at all. The doctors had told him he had been everything but brain dead, but actually seeing it drives the fact home in a way just hearing about it had not.

There’s the faintest of clicking sounds in the room, and Jon’s attention is drawn towards it. His focus moves and—

Oh.

The Jon in the bed had looked like a corpse, and that had been upsetting, but Martin somehow looks _worse _to Jon. The circles under his eyes are deep, dark pits that Jon feels one could fall into and never hit bottom. The eyes themselves are red, and as Jon watches, he sees tears well up, threatening to spill over. Martin’s breathing is a trembling, shaking thing, just like his hands as he manipulates yarn and needles. The needles are wooden, and Jon Knows that Martin chose them because they’d be quieter than the metal ones he sometimes used.

_Just keep knitting._

Jon hears Martin’s thought as if he’s spoken it out loud, and his consciousness flinches. This is— he’s invading Martin’s privacy. He doesn’t need to Know this, doesn’t want to See it, but what Jon wants doesn’t seem to factor in to things at all.

_Just keep knitting and everything will be fine. He’s so cold when I touch him, maybe this will help. Maybe I’ll finish making this for him and when I lay it over him it’ll— he’ll open his eyes and—_

The sob is a quiet thing _cry quietly don’t bother anyone _but it seems to echo in the room like a gunshot. Jon watches Martin fold into himself, spine bowed under the weight of misery.

_Pull yourself together. He’s going to be fine (he’s not he’s not he’s not) just keep knitting (it won’t help you know it won’t) everything will be all right (nothing has been all right for days weeks months years)._

Jon listens helplessly as Martin’s thoughts echo and overlap, a cacophony of grief. All he can do is watch as Martin’s grip falters on the needles, a few of the stitches sliding off of one end. The lost stitches travel downward, creating a trail of holes in their wake.

“Oh no,” Martin whispers through his tears. _Not again _his thoughts say as he grabs at the wayward stitches with his fingers, coaxing them back up through the rows, leaving twisted stitches behind. _Not again, can’t do anything right, should just unravel it and start over, Jon deserves better than this mess. (If I rip it all out it’s like giving up (_**_If I undo everything he’ll die_**_) and I’m not giving up on this) (not giving up on him)._

_“_Jon?”

Jon’s eyes snap open at the sound of Basira’s voice, then squeeze shut again at the brightness of the sun through the windscreen. For a moment he can still hear Martin’s tangled thoughts as if Martin himself were whispering them into his ear before they fade into memory, leaving only a momentary ache behind his eyes, and then not even that.

“W—what?” Jon opens his eyes again, shielding them with his hand. The car’s stopped, he realizes and the Institute, familiar and sinister all at once, towers in front of them. “Oh. We’re here.”

“Sounded like you were having a pretty bad dream,” Basira says, and when Jon turns to look at her she’s holding out a packet of tissues while pointedly not looking in his direction, as if trying to give him privacy. It’s only then he realizes that his face is wet with tears and he feels himself go hot with embarrassment.

“Yes,” Jon lies as he accepts the tissues from Basira and begins to mop at his face. “A bad dream.”

—————

Weeks pass and everything still feels wrong, everything’s changed so much. Melanie is so _angry_ all the time, and Jon knows very well she has plenty to be angry about, but something about the _intensity _of it almost reminds him of something, though he can’t put his finger on what. Basira comes and goes, but mostly she’s just _gone_, and when she’s around she doesn’t talk about whatever she’s been doing. Jon knows he could _ask_ her and she’d have to answer him but he refuses to do so, not unless he absolutely has to. And Martin—

Jon stares at his office door, his most recently read statement still in front of him, the tape recorder still on, the sound of the tape running almost as soothing as a cat’s purr. Jon thinks of the Admiral for a moment and sighs. He’s left a few voicemails on Georgie’s phone, but she hasn’t called him back. He’s pretty sure she’s done with him for good, another change that hurts his heart. He feels an ache in his chest, the familiar sting of self-pity rising in his throat and pricking at his eyes. He had _chosen_ to come back and no one seems happy about that choice, least of all himself.

Jon just keeps staring at his office door. He’s been waiting for the sound of familiar footsteps, a knock, a voice full of concern and exasperation as warm and familiar as a cup of tea. He’s been waiting for weeks as he records and reads and researches, and every night he curls up on his cot in the corner, wrapped in the knitted blanket that still smells like the hospital, still listening for any sign. For all Jon can tell, Martin isn’t even—

It’s not footsteps that have Jon up from the desk and moving for the door before he even has time to process his actions, though he hears those as he gets closer to the door. He just Knows Martin is walking past his door, a cup of tea in his hands and if Jon moves quick enough—

“Martin!” Jon can’t help but call out as he wrenches the door open. “Martin, I—“ And then he stops speaking because Martin is staring at him, eyes wide, and he’s _afraid. _Not startled, not a there and gone feeling. Genuine fear that Jon can _taste_ in the back of his throat, cold tea and honey and why can Jon _taste_ that? More importantly, why is Martin afraid?

“Oh. Jon. Hi.” The words sound like Martin has to summon them from a great distance, like just the act of speaking is in exhausting effort. Underneath it all is still that fear, not quite as sharp and immediate, more like the undertow that will pull you under the water than the wave that will knock you onto the sand. “How are you?”

Jon opens his mouth to speak. He wants to ask— no. He wants to _Ask_ Martin what’s wrong, what he’s afraid of, wants to _Know_. A large part of his desire is out of concern for Martin, but he can’t deny that some part of him is _craving_ the information. He closes his mouth, swallows down his questions, and tries again.

“I’m— as well as can be expected, I suppose.” Jon says carefully.

Martin nods. “I’m sorry I haven’t been by,” he says, not quite looking Jon in the eyes. “I’ve— Peter has been keeping me busy.”

Something flares in Jon’s gut, an emotion he can’t put a name to at the moment. “_Has_ he now,” Jon says quietly, and something about his tone brings Martin’s gaze up to meet his.

“Jon, it’s not _like_ that,” Martin says firmly, an apologetic note creeping through his words like fog on a winter morning. “I—“ His fingers tighten around his cup. “You have to trust me,” Martin says, so softly that Jon can barely hear it.

_I _**_do_**_ trust you_, Jon wants to say, but the words feel so heavy with emotion in his throat that he actually has to cough for a moment before he can breathe again.

“I have to go,” Martin says, and half turns away.

Jon wants to grab Martin by the wrist, wants to command him to **_stop_** and does neither of those things. But he _has_ to say something, anything—

“Thank you for the blanket,” Jon says, and watches as Martin half turns back toward him. He keeps speaking, because as long as he’s saying something, Martin will stand there and listen. “Is it hand wash only? I suppose I could wash it in the sink in the break room, but it’d take forever to dry. It’s just that it still smells like the hospital, and I rather it didn’t, but I’ll bear it if I have to. It’s the only thing I have left that you’ve made for me now. Everything else was— lost.” And there the words dry up, ending on that last choked syllable, because lost is how Jon feels and how Martin looks. Lost.

Something in Martin’s face shifts, like ice breaking apart on the ocean. “It’s machine washable wool,” Martin says, and there’s a hint of warmth to his voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago, a tiny light in his eyes. “Put it on the gentle cycle. And make sure when you put it in the dryer that it’s on the lowest possible setting or it might melt a bit.”

“Thank you.” It’s almost a whisper, like Jon is afraid if he speaks too loudly that flicker of light he sees in Martin’s eyes might blow out like a candle.

“You’re welcome,” Martin says quietly, as if afraid he’ll shatter if he speaks any louder. “Jon, I—“

The fear swells suddenly, a wave of ice in winter freezing everything, washing away all warmth.

“I have to go,” Martin says, and this time when he turns away, Jon doesn’t stop him. Instead he stands in the doorway and shivers even as something begins to burn in his chest, the first slow burning logs of what will become a bonfire.

If Jon ever meets Peter Lukas, there will be a _reckoning._

Jon steps back inside his office, grabbing the blanket from his cot and the coat from the back of his chair. There’s a laundromat around the corner, and he’s not going to be getting any more work done today anyway. He lets that task consume his thoughts, endures the clank and thump of washers and dryers and the buzz of fluorescent lights and is rewarded with a blanket that smells faintly of laundry soap and nothing more, warm and almost fluffy in his hands. He’s so preoccupied with the thought of wrapping himself up and taking a much needed nap that when he gets back to his office and opens the door he doesn’t notice what’s different at first, what’s been added.

On top of the pillow on his cot is a scarf made of soft grey wool, next to a pair of fingerless gloves.

Jon closes and locks the door behind him without looking at what he’s doing. He doesn’t blink until he’s sitting on the cot, until he’s got his blanket in his lap and the scarf and gloves in his hands, the wool against his fingers undeniably _real._ Jon feels along the scarf for the familiar bump along one edge where Martin had knotted two ends of the yarn together, looks at the thumb holes on his fingerless gloves to see if one of them is still bigger than the other. They are. These are _his_, and Jon Knows suddenly that Martin had taken them one night, one terrible, dark night and had held them and wept, just like Jon is doing now.

“Thank you,” Jon whispers, as if Martin can hear him.

Jon falls asleep that night with the scarf around his neck, the gloves on his hands, wrapped in the tangible proof that someone cares for him.

Two weeks later, a pair of socks show up on Jon’s desk. The stripes are perfect.


	5. Sweater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world as they know it may have ended, but that hasn't stopped Martin from knitting.

The Archivist can see so _much_ now.

Everywhere there is fighting. Some people fight with improvised weapons, boards with nails, molotov cocktails, homemade explosives. Some people have guns or bows, hand axes or knives, chainsaws and clubs. A few even have honest to gods _swords_. Some only have words, fast hands, fast feet, sharp eyes.

Everywhere there are people being saved. Light piercing the Dark. The Stranger’s manufactured armies being broken like so many toy soldiers. People who have felt the chill of the Lonely and survived wading back into the fog to pull others out.

Everywhere there are people dying. People burned in fires. People gasping their last breaths under the earth or under the water. People being torn apart by things that used to be animals, their forms twisted and changed by the Flesh. People being murdered by other people, driven by strange songs.

The Archivist sees all of it. He was made to be an archive of fear, yes, but he has made himself so much more than that now. He is an archive of life and death, love and loss, triumph and despair and hope.

Everywhere there are stories, and the Archivist Sees them all.

“Jon?”

The Archivist _blinks_, narrowing his focus, his awareness shifting slowly from billions of points of view down to a single one.

_Blink. _The United Kingdom.

_Blink._ London.

_Blink. _The roof of Georgina Barker’s flat, where Basira Hussain and Alice Tonner (_Daisy,_ a quiet voice whispers) are keeping watch. Basira’s eyes glow faintly, and as the Archivist watches, she cocks her head slightly.

“Hello Jon,” she says out loud.

Next to her, Daisy makes a sound between a growl and a laugh. Her eyes shine like a predators in the lights they’ve set up around the perimeter. “Still watching us, is he?” Her smile is very sharp.

“I think the question is, does he ever stop?”

_Blink. _The inside of Georgina’s (_Georgie. She hates being called Georgina) _flat. Georgie is asleep in her bed, curled up against Melanie King, who is sleeping as well. The Admiral is at the foot of the bed, staring off into the distance, purring as if he sees someone he likes.

“Jon?”

_Blink._ The Archivist sees himself sitting at a worn kitchen table, his eyes glowing greenish gold. He watches as Martin Blackwood, sitting across from him, takes one of his hands.

“Come back to me.”

Martin. Anchor. Lighthouse. Beacon. _Home._

Jon blinks. He can feel a fraction of his awareness still working busily in the back of his mind, Seeing, filing, storing. He could fall back into it with a thought, with a breath, with a blink. He squeezes Martin’s hand instead, focusing on the texture of Martin’s skin against his own.

Martin lets out a breath. “There you are,” he says softly.

“Here I am,” Jon replies, fulfilling his part in this ritual of reassurance. He still remembers the first time he had almost drowned in everything he had been Seeing, lost in the overwhelming and alluring tide of all that _knowledge._ Martin’s hand in his, his voice calling to him, pulling him back out. _Come back to me. _Jon has learned control since then, but it is still far easier to come back to himself when Martin is there to guide him. “Sorry, I was just checking on— everything. Lost track of time. Were you waiting up for me?” He glances at the clock on the stove and winces. It’s nearly one in the morning.

“I was a little,” Martin says, stifling a yawn with the hand that isn’t holding Jon’s own. “And then I guess I lost track of time too.” He smiles. “I made you something. Well, I’ve _been _making you something for awhile now, but I finished it.” He squeezes Jon’s hand before letting it go and reaching for something in his lap. “It’s okay if you already Know, you don’t have to act surprised.”

“I don’t Know,” Jon says, and it’s the truth. He _could_ Know if he wished to, but he doesn’t. When Martin holds out the sweater to him, the surprise that he feels is genuine. “Oh Martin, when did you—?”

“I mean, I wasn’t sleeping very well when we were on the road anyway,” Martin says with a little laugh. “So I could usually squeeze in an hour or two after you fell asleep. It was a lot easier once we got here and I didn’t have to knit by firelight anymore.”

Jon runs his hands over the soft green wool, all the stitches made in stolen moments. He lets himself See it now that Martin has said it, watches Martin squinting in the firelight, wooden needles clicking quietly but frantically as he knits at an almost feverish pace. He sees Martin sitting at this very table in the middle of the night, fending off the Admiral while the cat tries to play with the yarn.

“Try it on?” Martin asks. “I had to guess at the measurements a bit.”

Jon stands, pulling off the t-shirt he had been lounging in and eagerly pulling the sweater over his head, threading his arms through the sleeves. It’s not quite as large as the sweaters he routinely steals from Martin, the sleeves actually ending at his wrists instead of going over his fingers, but it’s still roomy and cozy and warm, the wool smelling faintly of campfire smoke. “Martin, it’s _perfect.”_

Martin shakes his head and chuckles, standing up and walking over to Jon, tugging here and there at the garment. “It’s really not. There’s supposed to be cables running down the sleeves, but I lost my cable needle at some point, probably during that one snowstorm if I had to guess. And speaking of the sleeves, I might not have joined them properly, they could fall off at any—“

Jon raises himself up on his toes a bit and stops Martin’s words with a kiss, hands on his shoulders. After a moment, Jon feels Martin’s arms around him, pulling him even closer.

“It’s perfect,” Jon says against Martin’s lips. “I love it.” He kisses Martin again, a slow, sweet, lingering kiss of the sort that usually leaves the both of them a bit breathless, so he’s surprised when he feels sudden wetness on his cheeks. When he pulls back, Martin laughs softly and starts wiping at his eyes.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s not you,” Martin says quickly, a bit of laughter still in his voice. “It’s just— I was thinking that you could add the sweater curse to the list of things we’ve defeated, and it sort of hit me funny, that’s all.”

“The sweater curse?” The term sparks Jon’s memory. “Georgie mentioned that to me once while I was staying here. We were, well, we were talking about the things you had made for me, and she said something about how you must have really liked me, because you made me socks. I spent the rest of the conversation trying to wrap my head around the fact that you might have actually _liked_ me, so I have to admit I didn’t really hear much of what she was saying after that.”

Martin chuckles, not unkindly. “It took you until the socks to figure it out? I thought I was being embarrassingly obvious at the time.”

“I think it took me that long to let myself think about what the gifts might have meant,” Jon says, wiping away one last stray tear from Martin’s cheek with his thumb. “And then it took me even longer to come to terms with my own feelings.” He wants to apologize for that, or rather, apologize for that _again_, but it’s a conversation they’ve already had, and he doesn’t want this moment spoiled by regrets for things neither of them can change. Instead, he changes the subject. “So, what _is _the sweater curse?”

“Oh it’s this old knitting superstition that says if you knit a sweater for your significant other, they’ll break up with you before you finish the sweater. Or I’ve also heard it where the knitter actually finishes the sweater and _then_ their significant other leaves soon after. It’s— There’s a bunch of rational explanations for that sort of thing happening, it’s not, you know.” Martin waves a hand vaguely. “Nothing supernatural. Knitting a sweater takes a long time, and sometimes the relationship falls apart in the meantime, or the relationship _was_ falling apart and making the sweater was a last ditch attempt to save it. Or the recipient of the sweater doesn’t appreciate it as much as the knitter thinks they should, and the resentment builds up between them. It’s that sort of thing.”

“I love everything you’ve made me,” Jon says before frowning slightly. “You were afraid I was going to leave you?” Because there _had _been the remnants of some old fear clinging to Martin’s words.

“No,” Martin says very quietly. “Or— not like that. I wasn’t even _thinking _about the sweater curse when I bought the yarn.” He laughs, a sound with no humor in it, and Jon feels Martin’s grip tighten on him just a fraction. “There was a little knitting shop by the post office, and I _told_ myself I wasn’t going to buy anything. We were on the run, technically, we weren’t on _vacation._ Except that’s what it felt like. Like we were finally getting a _break._ And I saw the yarn and I thought that the color would look really nice on you and that was that.” He laughs again, and this time there’s an edge to it. “And hours later when the world went wrong and I ran back to the cottage and found you lying on the floor? The first thought that went through my mind was that I hadn’t even _started _the sweater yet.”

Jon pulls Martin closer, as much for his own comfort as for Martin’s. That day is a blur of shock and anguish for him, but there are moments that stand out with perfect clarity. The words that ended the world they had known rising from his throat against his will. The sky looking back at him, Seeing him. Martin’s fear, warm and rich in his mouth like tea and cinnamon and honey, the fear that Jon would go mad, that he’d lose himself and Martin wouldn’t be able to bring him back.

“The sweater curse that ended the world,” Jon says, and it’s not funny, except it is, in the way that things spoken at one in the morning tend to be. He finds himself chuckling despite himself and when Martin joins him a moment later, the laughter lacks the hysterical edge it had held moments ago.

“Just the potential of the sweater brought about the apocalypse. It’s a very powerful sweater then,” Martin manages to say through his laughter.

“Well of course it is, Martin. You made it for me.” Jon’s still laughing, but he means what he’s saying.

Martin leans his forehead against Jon’s, his laughter ruffling Jon’s hair. “It is entirely too late in the evening or too early in the morning for sincerity.”

Jon kisses Martin again, slow and lingering and sweet, and it’s Jon that tucks the memory away to cherish, not the Archivist. “Let’s go to bed then.”

Sleep finds them both easily that night, the two of them wrapped tightly in blankets and in each other, the blanket Martin made for Jon gracing the top of the pile. It’s suffered some hardships, just like the two of them, but it still keeps them warm.

——

On the day the Fears become Extinct, on the day the world ends again, begins again, on the day Jon faces Jonah Magnus sitting on his makeshift throne, Jon is wearing armor. A scarf stained dark with old blood where it had been used to bind a wound. Fingerless gloves almost black with dirt from clawing at the earth (Daisy by his side howling with rage, clawing as well) when the Buried had tried to claim Basira. Socks worn through from walking from Scotland to London, patched again and again by Martin in the light of their nightly campfires. A sweater that was knit with love during a time of fear and uncertainty. Every stitch of these items is an archive. It is all the protection he needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the most fantastical thing that I have written is that Martin somehow found the time walking from London to Scotland during the end of the world to knit a WHOLE SWEATER. That's the power of love and yarn.


	6. Scarf (Reprise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Christmas Eve morning and Martin gives Jon an early Christmas present. It's only fair that Martin gets to open one as well.

Martin isn’t sure what wakes him, and for a moment he just lays in bed, eyes still closed, listening to the sounds of the house settling. He isn’t drenched in sweat and he’s not shivering as if he were freezing, as if the damp fogs of another time and place have settled into his bones. It wasn’t nightmares that had woken him them, or a sudden flare-up of anxiety. And yet there’s a fluttering feeling in his stomach. Anticipation.

_Christmas_, Martin thinks for a moment, slightly more awake now. _No, Christmas Eve._ _Our first Christmas Eve in our own place. Our own _**_home._**It’s the same excitement he’s felt for weeks as he’s helped Jon decorate their cottage, as he’s baked enough cookies and cakes to feed probably half the village down the hill. This afternoon the rest of the family will be coming in, Georgie and Melanie and Daisy and Basira. Jon and Martin haven’t seen them since they had all come down for the wedding in the spring, everyone pitching in to repair and renovate Daisy’s safehouse, her wedding present to the two of them.

“As long as you don’t mind living where… you know,” Daisy had said. _Where the end of the world had started_ was how Martin had guessed she would have ended the sentence, that or something similar. He had looked over at Jon, who after a moment had smiled at Martin before taking his hand.

“I spent three of the best weeks of my life there before… everything,” Jon had said quietly. “Martin? What do you think?”

For a moment Martin had been lost in memories of the day the world had ended the first time. Running into the cottage to find Jon on the floor, statements fluttering in the breeze coming from the broken windows. Jon’s laughter, hysterical and awful and _wrong_, echoing off of the walls. But there had been other types of laughter in the weeks before, warm and affectionate, more good memories than bad ones. Martin had learned that Jon had loved him when he had rescued him from the shores of the Lonely, but the cottage was one of the places where Martin had begun to learn what that love had _meant._

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Martin had managed to say, voice thick with emotion.

Martin smiles at the memory and rolls over in bed, reaching for Jon. Instead his hand lands on warm fur and there’s a low, rusty _mrrrrrrrr _from the other side of the bed.

“Sorry Pancake!” Martin apologizes effusively as he moves his hand. It bumps into something else furry that squeaks as if offended.

“Sorry Phoenix!”

“Mehhhhhhh!” There is the tiny prick of claws as the small orange kitten tries to climb up Martin’s side.

“Hold on, hold on.” Martin sits up in bed, one hand scooping up the kitten and the other fumbling for the switch of the reading lamp on the bedside table, squinting at the light as he puts on his glasses. A glance at the clock tells him it’s nearly three in the morning and he glances at the nearly empty side of the bed with a slight frown, trying to ignore the way his heart is racing. He still has nightmares where he wakes up and Jon is gone, that _everyone _is gone, that the world is empty of everything except fog and the sound of waves hissing against a distant shore. But this is not a dream, the presence of a very fluffy black and white cat looking at him with a disgruntled expression and the kitten trying to burrow into him are proof of that.

“Mraaaaah!” Phoenix headbutts Martin in the chest, digging into Martin’s shirt with his sharp kitten claws.

“Just because I woke up doesn’t mean it’s time to eat,” Martin tells the kitten as he climbs out of bed. “No matter how much you beg.”

Phoenix purrs as Martin steps into his slippers. The kitten is a recent addition to their household, an energetic ball of orange fur who likes to climb places that he shouldn’t and begs for treats at every opportunity. Martin had found the poor thing half frozen in the woodpile weeks ago after the first snowfall of the year and he can still recall with perfect clarity the sound the kitten had made when Martin had picked it up, the tiniest little squeak, as if to say that it wasn’t dead yet. It was Jon who had named the kitten Phoenix.

Pancake uncurls himself and stands up, stretching before he jumps off of the bed, winding around Martin’s ankles and purring loudly, the sound reminding Martin of a motorboat with a rusty engine, just like it always does.

“The same goes for you, Pancake.”

Pancake had been with them since Spring, and he had been a rescued stray as well, Jon running out into the street bad leg and all to stop the poor thing from being hit by a car. Martin had done some yelling about that after Jon and the cat were safely on the side of the road again, but that was Jon all over, wasn’t it? Running into danger even if it meant he could have ended up being run over flatter than a pancake. (That wasn’t how Pancake had gotten his name, though it would have made sense. No, he had earned that by running off with Martin’s breakfast the first morning after they’d brought him home from the vet. “Pancake thief” had been shortened to Pancake before the week was out.)

Martin walks down the hallway, stifling a yawn as he goes. The living room is full of light, both from the fire crackling in the fireplace and the Christmas tree, a tree which Jon is kneeling in front of.

“Jon?”

“Martin!” Jon looks over his shoulder and his expression is almost that of a guilty child. “I was just—“

“Shaking your presents to try and figure out what Santa brought you?”

“I haven’t done that since I was _six_,” Jon retorts in mock outrage. He goes to get up and Martin hears him swear softly, his body tensing. “I— need a bit of help.”

Martin sets Phoenix down and walks quickly over to Jon, helping him to his feet and leading him over to the couch. Jon sinks down onto it with a grateful sigh and a weary smile.

“Thank you.” Jon rubs at his leg where the deep divot of the worm scar remains, wincing. His old injuries give him more trouble now that he’s no longer an avatar. There’s the leg of course, and some lingering nerve damage in Jon’s right hand with its dull burn scars. The migraines had started after the world had been set to rights again, blinding things that leave Jon in bed for days.

“Bad night?” Martin asks, pretty sure that he knows the answer, can read it in the faint lines of pain etched around Jon’s eyes. Jon always wakes Martin up when he has a nightmare, but for pain Jon has a tendency to slip out of bed and go sleep on the couch instead.

“Just the leg,” Jon says quietly as Martin sits down next to him. He says most things quietly these days, it’s not something he can help. Sometimes Martin wakes from dreams of the day the Fears went extinct with the memory of Jon’s voice ringing in his ears, the chant that had become a beautiful and terrible song ending in three simple words heard by everyone that had still lived, words so laced with compulsion that no one had been able to refuse. _Be not afraid. _“And then I remembered I had one more present to wrap, so I figured I might as well take care of that while I was up and waiting for the pills to kick in. Which they could do at _any_ time now. That would be nice.”

Pancake leaps up into Jon’s lap, rubbing against him affectionally before settling into his lap and purring his broken purr again. Jon smiles and leans against Martin, idly stroking the cat with one hand, watching the fire burn low. “The tree’s beautiful, Martin. You did a great job with it.”

“_We_ did a great job with it,” Martin corrects him. “You helped, remember?” Martin looks toward the tree, the space underneath it already piled high with presents (which Phoenix is happily exploring), both for each other and all their friends. He takes a deep breath, smelling woodsmoke and balsam and cinnamon all mixed together.

“It’s nice having a tree again,” Martin says. “That used to be my favorite part of Christmas, really, besides the presents. Going out with— with Dad to get the tree, and then all three of us decorating it together while eating Christmas cookies that Mum had made. After he— after he left, Mum didn’t bother with the tree. Didn’t have the money for it. Would just leave me a present on the kitchen table.” She had stopped bothering with that too after a few years, though that hadn’t stopped Martin from scraping up money from odd jobs to get her a gift every Christmas.

Jon takes Martin’s hand, running his thumb gently over the knuckles. “We had an artificial tree,” Jon says. “It was— it looked like something from a magazine cover. Very grand. Twinkling lights and all these blown glass ornaments my grandmother had collected over the years.”

Their own tree houses a mix of generic plastic ornaments (there _had_ been a set of glass balls before Phoenix had discovered that trees were fun to climb) along with more personal ones. Martin smiles at the fluffy cow ornament wearing a Santa hat. “Wouldn’t have lasted a moment around our two cats.”

Jon chuckles softly. “No, no it wouldn’t have. My grandmother was very—_particular _about the tree. She’d let me put the thing together, popping the branches into the trunk, but she’d be the one who’d put the lights and ornaments on it every year. She wouldn’t even let _me_ near the tree once it was decorated until Christmas Day, and she’d watch me like a hawk to make sure I didn’t break anything. One year—“ Jon’s hand tightens on Martin’s ever so slightly. “When I was about— oh, seven? I made an ornament for the tree. Nothing special, just a construction paper Santa with a cotton ball beard. You know the type, just a silly little thing, but I wanted to put it on the tree. There was a spot near the side, out of the way. Not even in the front. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

Martin winces, having a feeling that he knows where this story is going. “Did you—“

“It was a blown glass gingerbread house,” Jon says very softly. “Dad had given it to her. Just my bad luck that it was the one I accidentally knocked off the tree. I still remember the sound it made when it hit the floor, and the look on her face. It was— a very quiet Christmas that year.”

“Oh Jon.” Martin puts an arm around Jon and pulls him closer. “I’m sorry.”

Jon shakes his head. “It’s not a _thing_, Martin, it’s not. It’s in the past.”

Martin remembers the hesitant way Jon had helped him decorate the tree, how tentatively Jon had hung the ornaments. At the time Martin had just thought that Jon was being endearingly meticulous, as was his way. Now though, now Martin understands. For a few moments they both sit in silence before Martin gives Jon’s shoulder a squeeze. “Listen, stay here for a moment while I grab something?”

Jon chuckles dryly. “Can’t go anywhere, I have a cat in my lap.”

Martin kisses Jon’s temple before darting back into the bedroom, retrieving a small box that he’d hidden on the top shelf of the closet where Jon couldn’t reach. When he sits back on the couch, Jon leans back against his side with a contented sigh, the tightness in his face having eased somewhat. “What do you have there?” Jon asks, and his consonants have lost their edge, his vowels soft and rounded, the painkillers finally doing their work.

Martin hands Jon the plain white box. “It’s for you. Well, _us_, really, but—“

Jon opens the box and stares at the contents for a long moment.

“I was going to just hang it on the tree tonight and see how long it would take you to notice,” Martin says to fill the silence. “But suddenly this seemed like a better idea.”

Jon draws the ornament gently from the box, a wooden key dangling from the bright red ribbon. _First Christmas in our new home,_ the laser engraved letters read. _The Blackwood-Sims (_Jon had been the one to insist on alphabetical order) followed by their address and the year.

“Oh, Martin,” Jon’s voice is barely a whisper. “Thank you. It’s—“ and then Jon is reaching for his cane and he’s up off the couch and at the tree before Martin can say a word, Pancake leaping off of Jon’s lap with a disgruntled _mrrrp_. “Where should it go?”

“Wherever you like,” Martin replies. “Anywhere at all.”

Martin watches as Jon almost puts the ornament on a few branches before drawing back and trying a different spot, frowning slightly as if the placement were absolutely crucial. When Jon finally steps back with a nod, the ornament is hanging front and center on the tree, flanked by a ornament of a cat sleeping on a pile of books and a teacup ornament painted with holly and mistletoe. “How does it look?”

“Perfect,” Martin says, and he’s not talking about just the ornament. He’s talking about the house, the tree, about Jon with his sleep wild hair and rumpled pajamas, about this moment that he had never dared let himself imagine years ago. From the way Jon looks at him as he walks back to the couch, Martin thinks Jon knows exactly what he is thinking. The kiss Jon gives him after he sits back down is a gentle, trembling thing that leaves the both of them a little bit breathless.

“You should open a gift too,” Jon says, his forehead resting against Martin’s. “It’s only fair.”

Martin hums thoughtfully, one hand carding the tangles from Jon’s hair. He should be trying to coax Jon back to bed, but he’s also enjoying this nice, quiet moment between the two of them. “All right,” he says. “One present and then we really need to get some sleep.” He gives Jon a kiss on the forehead before heading over to the tree. “Any one in particular that you want me to open?”

“Whichever you like,” Jon says with a yawn which Martin echoes.

There are a lot of presents under the tree, but it’s the gift bag that catches Martin’s eye for two reasons. The first is that Martin is sure that it hadn’t been there when he had gone to bed. The second is that it’s moving in such a way that means that whatever it is, Phoenix has gotten into it.

“You have your own presents to open later,” Martin tells Phoenix as he scoops the kitten out of the bag. Phoenix squeaks in protest, then scampers over to Pancake and flops down next to him. Martin smiles at the sight and then checks the gift tag on the present to make sure it’s his before bringing it back to the couch. “This one then.”

“Oh,” Jon says, and something about the way he says it makes Martin hesitate with his hand halfway to removing the tissue paper. “That one. Little nervous about that one.”

“I’ll love it whatever it is,” Martin says confidently, and Jon chuckles.

“I’m sure you will,” Jon says. “It’s just— well, making something as a gift feels different then just buying it, I suppose. I guess I know how you feel now.”

“Jon, did you—?” Martin’s hands go past the tissue paper and brush against a texture he’s very familiar with. “Did you _knit_ me something?”

“I wanted to do it sooner,” Jon says softly as Martin starts drawing the scarf out of the bag. The wool is a beautiful heather blue, a color that reminds Martin of the sky in springtime. “For our wedding. I thought it would be only fitting since a scarf was the first gift you had ever made for me. But it took me longer to get the hang of it properly than I had thought it would, and my first few attempts were just _terrible._”

Martin is still pulling the scarf from the bag like a magician pulling silk scarves from their sleeve, fingers sinking slightly into what he is sure is fine Shetland wool. “Jon, it’s _beautiful.”_

“It’s a little long,” Jon says, dodging the compliment, but there’s a faint blush to his cheeks. “It didn’t seem long enough so I just kept working on it and then suddenly it was _very _long.”

“Long is good!” Martin insists as he finally comes to the end of the scarf, his lap full of wool. He stands, draping the scarf around his neck, noting with amusement that the ends go down to past his knees. With a grin he wraps the scarf around and around several times until at least half his face is covered. “How does it look?” He asks, words muffled by the wool.

“Like you’re ready for a blizzard,” Jon says, looking up at Martin with a soft, shy smile that had been a rarity once upon a time. “You really like it? You’re not just saying that?”

The words echo in Martin’s memory. Had he asked Jon that all those years ago, that night in the Archive when he had given Jon the scarf he had made? He tugs at the layers of wool until he manages to free his mouth. “I love it,” Martin assures him, reaching down and pulling Jon to his feet before placing a gentle kiss to his lips. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Jon says with a sigh, closing his eyes and snuggling against Martin’s chest, one hand fisted in Martin’s scarf.

“We should go back to bed,” Martin says. “Busy morning ahead of us.”

“Mmmmm,” Jon agrees, but makes no move to step away or disentangle himself from Martin. Martin doesn’t move either, except to put his arms around Jon. Eventually Martin will carry Jon to bed, the cats following behind them. Later the house will be full of their friends, their _family_, the smell of good food, the sound of laughter. Right now though it’s just the two of them holding each other close in the glow of Christmas lights, as tightly knit together as two people can be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And done is done! Writing these has really made me want to knit again but, well, the way my brain works I either knit or I write, it's rarely both at once. 
> 
> I hope everyone's enjoyed this (mostly) fluffy little fic!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angel-ascending on Tumblr and angel_in_ink on Twitter if y'all want to stop by and say hi!


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